Letters
by a-heavyheart-tocarry
Summary: Annie gets letters sometimes. Post-Mockingjay. Some Finnick/Annie. Oneshot.


Annie gets letters sometimes.

Most are from the Capitol— or what was previously the Capitol. Some were from those who wanted to make a spectacle out of her, the Plutarch Heavensbees of the country, who wanted to keep the fire set by Katniss Everdeen burning as long as they could, purely for their public benefit. They wanted to primp and prep her like a plucked chicken, like she was a tribute again, just to display her tragic and beautiful face to the cameras once more.

Annie burns those without even really looking at him, because she can't handle that thought again— the thought that she's just a tool for someone else to use. She's had enough of that in one lifetime. More than enough.

Some from that wretched place she never wants to lay eyes on again are more personal. They're from her doctor, from old friends who have moved there. A few are from those who she never wants to remember, those who destroyed the man she loved because he had no choice, those who caused others pain for their own gratification childishly, unthinkingly. She resists opening those until she can't anymore, and then she cries and screams and locks herself away, only to lock the kinder ones in boxes— maybe as keepsakes, maybe as reminders, she doesn't know in that state— and burns the others with the rest of the Capitol trash.

Katniss and Johanna write occasionally. She has a feeling they would more, but she knows they're all caught up in their own inner battles. They don't have the capacity to worry about anything beyond their own survival. Even today, even how things are now. Peeta is more frequent. She thinks she misses him the most because, out of all of them, he's the one who understands. He knows what it's like to lose your senses, to not depict reality from what's been shoved into you by an outside force. He's a kind person too. Annie is drawn to kinder people— maybe because the rest of the world is just so cruel. Annie keeps those letters, always.

When her stomach is round and ripe with the son that causes her so much joy and so much sadness at the same time, Mrs. Everdeen's careful writing ends up in her letterbox. Annie knows she's in District Four, but she's never been by to see the young woman. Maybe because she doesn't want anything reminding her of the past. Annie can respect that. She herself has been locked up so long in this house, in herself; she's very wary of going out again. She's too frail for it. Mrs. Everdeen is nice, all the same. She congratulates her on her baby. Annie knows it must be hard for Mrs. Everdeen to talk about that. She's lost both babies of her own, really.

Annie tucks that letter into a drawer, and she'll sometimes take it out and read it again and wonder what Mrs. Everdeen's doing now, drawing conclusions based on the wisps of rumors she hears from the lady who delivers her groceries or the doctor who checks on Fin when he's born.

Fin's scraggly, little-boy handwriting ends up in his folder from school one day, when he's older and Annie's somewhat better. Better enough to raise a child at least. Better enough to smile and hug her boy, concealing the tears in her eyes as she thinks about how brave and how strong a boy must be to write to his mother about how he understands and how he knows she misses his daddy and how he'll make her proud. All at six years old.

Other letters come and go. A letter from Fin's school (he got in trouble and had to apologize to that boy he got into a grapple with, just like his father he was), a summons to the remains of the Capitol to celebrate the ten-year anniversary of the end of the Mockingjay war (she ignored that one), the birth announcement of Katniss and Peeta's child (that one merited a special trip up to District Twelve).

But quite possibly her favorite letter was worn out and sandy and the writing was almost illegible because of the messy handwriting of the boy responsible for it. It was hasty and ill-written— affectionate words tumbling out sloppily and obviously in a great rush and nervousness. And it brought tears to Annie's eyes whenever she read it, and sometimes in the middle she went to her bad place, but then she read the rest and talked to Fin over the phone and it was fine. Because the letter was beautiful.

But, then again, everything Finnick Odair touched was and always had been. And Annie knew that better than anyone.


End file.
